Ode to my poor deluded friend

CNN.com - Iraq war wasn't justified, U.N. weapons experts say - Mar 21, 2004

Justification: something (such as a fact or circumstance) that shows an action to be reasonable or necessary.

When Bill Clinton and his general Wesley Clark dropped bombs on Serbia and killed 900 civilians what was the justification? Headlines from sea to shining sea read GENOCIDE!, but was this true? I haven't found an accounting of the number of innocent Kosovar Albanians killed but it doesn't seem to be more than a few thousand. Certainly a tragedy and certainly criminal, but the same administration didn't lift a finger while a real genocide was occuring in Rwanda. Why should we believe that ethnic cleansing was the justification for attacking Serbia?

Did Serbia attack the U.S.? Since they did no such thing this war was a preemptive war. While the Left accuses President Bush of initiating the doctrine of preemption, it was, most certainly, Former President Clinton who installed preemption as policy.

Was Serbia an "immenent threat" to the US? I think the answer is pretty clear. The war they were in with the KLA was a civil war, as were previous wars involving Serbia.

Was there a single U.N. Security Council resolution to intervene in Kosovo by bombing Serbia? Well, no. So again former President Clinton was guilty of "unilateral" use of military forces long before President Bush.

WMDs in Serbia? You get the point.

While Clinton and Clark were off trying to take out Milosevic, they lost sight of the real threat to the US, Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda had already bombed the WTC complex once before the war against Serbia.

Summing up, Clinton preemptively attacked a country which wasn't an imminent threat to the US, which didn't possess WMDs and without a UN mandate to do so while losing sight of the true enemy Al Qaeda. Maybe if Bubba had done more against the right enemy 9/11 and 3/11 never would have happened. Please tell me why it was necessary to fly at 10,000 feet and rain death on innocent Serbian civilians

Every attack and accusation made against President Bush should have been made against President Clinton. Those who did so then have some moral ground from which to launch such today. I said some, let's continue to fill out the balance sheet.

What a shame

BNL Blog: "Corporations are psychopaths, and they exist solely to benefit their shareholders; that any social responsibility they take must benefit the shareholders first or they will instead avoid any social responsibility. Although it seems obvious, it is a startling and, for me, moving plea for stronger government, and a passionate defense of democracy as the domain of the voters, not the corporations."

A person with a mental disease, usually characterized by a mental or emotional instability, due to a defect in character or personality, that approaches but falls short of insanity.

It's a shame that people buy into this clap-trap. There's a long list of these gloomy pronouncements that seem to enthrall the Left.

Corporations are evil creations which will intentionally destroy the world and every living thing in it.
Humans will destroy the world unless we return to 17th Century agrarian lives.
Pacifism is a successful strategy when dealing with Authoritarians, Madmen and Dictators.
etc.

This particular one is so interesting. Despite millions of examples of the benefits to everyone from corporations, anecdotal stories of the few bad apples become the definition of every business in the world. Drug companies which have extended the lives of almost every person in the world. Agro-businesses that are producing more food then even thought possible a few decades ago. Transportation companies that have made every form of transportation safer and cheaper than it ever has been. Communication companies have made worldwide, instant communication virtually free. Anyone in the world can read this blog at any time of day or night. Do I really need to continue?

How many companies enter the marketplace intent on doing harm to the public? Have some companies found themselves between the devil and deep blue sea and then decided to cover-up product defects or dangerous malfunctions? Sure. Can't we say the same thing of individuals? Every hit-and-run 'accident' is a clear example of individuals who seek to avoid the consequences of their actions.

Clearly, the billions of products, the lengths companies go to to insure their safety and benefit the world experiences as a result of corporations far exceed the malfeasance of a few bad companies or bad people within good companies.

de Villepin is the Worst Kind of Politician

French foreign minister says Iraq war led to more dangerous world: ''Terrorism didn't exist in Iraq before,'' de Villepin said. ''Today, it is one of the world's principal sources of world terrorism.''

Not only are these statements completely untrue, they are also dangerous. Clearly de Villepin is attempting to create anxiety and fear in order to advance his own agenda.

First, Hussein and his sons terrorized the people of Iraq with a savagery rarely seen on the world stage. People with their tongues cut out, piles of executed bodies, women raped, atheletes tortured, citizens spying on each other for any sign of free thinking; if this isn't terrorism I don't know what world the French Foreign Minister is living in. With the revelations of the Oil-for-Food program, the fear of death and starvation caused by withholding medicine and food from the Iraqi people is now associated directly with U.N. officials. Mr. de Villepin, there was plenty of terrorism in Iraq, but for you to admit that would mean that you would also have to acknowledge that it was your veto in the security council that was intended to allow it to continue.

Today, schools are being built, children including girls are receiving an education, food for oil is a reality not a U.N. pocket-lining sham, the people are debating the form of government is best for them, etc. The later is quite funny. The major media outlets report each disagreement surrounding the formation of a new government as proof that this process is impossible. Have they read the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers? The number of issues debated in the formation of our country fill numberous books. This process is healthy and shouldn't have an artificial deadline. Those who emphasize a deadline are not friends of this country nor friends of Iraq. But back to terrorism. Are there moslem extremists in Iraq attacking American Soldiers and innocent civilians? Since the start of the war, until Madrid, all of the terrorism was located within Iraq and the Madrid bombers weren't Iraqis. So why would Frenchie tell the world that Iraq is a principle source of terrorism? I would not be surprised if Iraq was a major source of terrorism when Frenchie said it wasn't and wants some cover when that is discovered. Sooner or later some bio-agent or chemical weapon will be used against the U.S or England or Italy and when that occurs de Villepin will claim it is because of the war in Iraq, even though it will be demonsterable that the attack was planned before the war. We'll see whether we want to or not.

So where, exactly, are our jobs going

Originally in the WSJ:

"Contrary to conventional U.S. beliefs, the research found that American manufacturing workers weren't the biggest losers. The U.S. lost about two million manufacturing jobs in the 1995-2002 period, an 11% drop. But Brazil had a 20% decline. Japan's factory work force shed 16% of its jobs, while China's was down 15%.

Joseph Carson, director of global economic research at Alliance, says the reasons for the declines are similar across the globe: Gains in technology and competitive pressure have forced factories to become more efficient, allowing them to boost output with far fewer workers. Indeed, even as manufacturing employment declined, says Mr. Carson, global industrial output rose more than 30%."

Yet the Left hammers away at Bush as the first President to have a net job loss since Hoover. If our jobs are going to Brazil or China or Mexico, because of some Bush economic policy and yet all of these same nations are losing jobs despite the influx of outsourced American jobs, there is clearly something much larger at work.

Let's keep in mind a big picture. It is more than likely that every manufacturing job could be replaced by automation. The number of farriers in this country has been shrinking over the past 100 years. It wasn't the fault of any President and had any one of them appointed a farrier czar, it would not have made a difference. Horses as primary transportation were being replaced by motor vehicles. We can sit around an bemoan the loss of manufacturing jobs but does it really matter if the job went to a Malaysian or a robot? A lost job is a lost job -- you change with the times or you get left behind. Eventually the Malaysian will expect a high standard of living, automation cost will decrease and the Malaysian will then lose to the robot just as the American worker is losing today. It's no one's fault, it just is. It's progress. It's invention. It's evolution and it's fine.